As time marches on and the subways enjoy record-setting crowds (more on that later), various capital construction deadlines are fast approaching. As we know, two megaprojects — the 7 line extension and the Fulton St. Transit Center — are due to wrap this year, after nearly seven years of construction. Due to the delays plaguing the escalators and elevators at the deep 34th St. station along 11th Ave., the Fulton St. ribbon-cutting has leap-frogged the 7 line. According to MTA Board documents released yesterday, Fulton St. will open to public on Thursday, June 26, 2014. Save the date.
Meanwhile, mitigation work and acceptance testing continues on the Far West Side, and the MTA is still committed to delivering the 7 line in the fall, nearly 11 months later than scheduled. For now, the official word is still “November,” but according to an engineering report contained within the MTA’s materials this week, that date could hit December if problems aren’t resolved. The winter solstice is December 21. So the MTA has three weeks in December in which it is still technically fall to deliver the project. Hold your breath.
Finally, over on the East Side, the Second Ave. Subway continues to be on pace for a December 2016 revenue start date, but the documents detail some slippage. Construction crews have burned through approximately half of the project’s planned contingency days, and a few delivery dates have been pushed back. Still, until we hear otherwise, December 2016 it is. That’s only 33 months away, and the real estate market is responding in turn.
In the grand scheme of the way I use the city’s transit system, I don’t get too worked up over trends in subway car cleanliness. Trains are constantly in motion, and it’s easy to see how one person — that woman who drops her French fries on the ground and tries to hide it by stepping on them; the man using the subway floor for his chewed up sunflower seeds — can ruin it for everyone. By and large, I find subway cars clean enough for every day usage, but not anywhere I’d really want to settle into.
(Rockaway Park)
In a scathing report concerning Metro-North’s recent safety troubles, the FRA accused the railroad of prioritizing trumped-up on-time performance over everything else, including safety, and urged the agency to make top-to-bottom changes to ensure the accidents we’ve seen over the past year do not become routine. The report comes just over three months after the fatal Spuyten Duyvil crash and a few days after a train struck and killed a worker on the Park Avenue viaduct.